Seven New Libraries Join VOKAL With ByWater Solutions' Koha Support

ByWater Solutions, an open source community supporter and the U.S.’ forefront provider of Koha support, is happy to welcome Vernon Free, Westford, Weathersfield Proctor, Quenchee, Wilder, Haston, and Rockingham Free Libraries to the Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries (VOKAL). All seven libraries are now live on the Koha integrated library system through VOKAL.

VOKAL now has over 40 libraries using the system which has nearly 895,000 items available to 87,000 patrons. The VOKAL shared catalog can be searched at http://catalog.kohavt.org.

Richard Pritsky, Kim Peine & Wendy Hysko from the VOKAL executive team shared their excitement over these new additions:

“We’re thrilled that we’ve had ByWater as a partner since 2009 to support us as the first Vermont statewide library consortium. In that time we’ve grown to 43 libraries with more scheduled through 2014. Sharing our Koha system with other libraries across the state has created a dynamic community!”

About the Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries (VOKAL):

The Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries (VOKAL), is a project of the Green Mountain Library Consortium dedicated to creating a shared catalog and Integrated Library System.

In 2007, the Stowe Free Library, the Carpenter-Carse Library (Hinesburg), and the Kimball Public Library (Randolph) joined with Sheila Kearns of the Vermont Department of Libraries to explore options for an ILS system to replace Follett. They decided on Koha, and in May of 2008, this team became VOKAL. For more information about VOKAL, please visit: https://sites.google.com/site/vokalvtpublic/home

About Koha:

Koha is the first open-source Integrated Library System (ILS). In use worldwide, its development is steered by a growing community of libraries collaborating to achieve their technology goals. Koha’s impressive feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base. It includes modules for circulation, cataloging, acquisitions, serials, reserves, patron management, branch relationships, and more.

Koha’s OPAC, circulation, management and self-checkout interfaces are all based on standards-compliant World Wide Web technologies,XHTML, CSS and Javascript,making Koha a truly platform-independent solution. Koha is distributed under the open-source General Public License (GPL). For more information about Koha, please visit: http://koha-community.org

About ByWater Solutions:

With over 10 years of experience, ByWater Solutions offers customized hosting, data migration, configuration, installation, training, support options and development of the enterprise class open source library system, Koha. Offering a 24/7 technical helpline, ByWater Solutions’ clients have the support system they need to make their software work for them. ByWater Solutions pledges to share 100% of all developed code to the Koha community for the strengthening and advancement of the Koha ILS. For more information about ByWater Solutions, please visit: http://bywatersolutions.com